Samuel Norris
Age 84
SERVICE: Enlisted in the Army in June 1940; awarded two Purple Hearts, one Silver Star and three Bronze Stars
RANK: First sergeant
WHERE HE LANDED: The D-Day landing at Utah Beach was rough, but nowhere near as rough or gory as the landing at Omaha Beach, the one depicted in the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan.
Mr. Norris was part of the first wave of infantrymen to hit the Utah shores. It was his first time in combat. The way he remembers it, the hardest part, and the key to surviving, was getting out of the water.
The pilots of the landing crafts didn't want to let their ramps down on the sand because of the danger of getting stuck. Mr. Norris said he jumped off and found himself neck-deep in saltwater. He spent five minutes wading to shore, weighed down with equipment and taking scattered machine gun fire.
Some of the soldiers with him didn't make it.
Mr. Norris said he doesn't know whether they were shot or drowned.
"There was more of them killed in the water than on the beach," he said. "Once you got out of that water and got your foot on that beach, you moved on up. You didn't stay there too long."
The next thing they had to get through was razor wire strung along the sand. It turned out most of the German defenses had been knocked out by bombs, artillery and tanks. Past the beach, there were dead horses and dead Germans blocking a road, and the remains of horse-drawn artillery set up along the coastline.
MOST VIVID MEMORY: About a mile inland, Mr. Norris spotted a man in a gray uniform coming out of a house, walking out a door leading into a stable. Their eyes met, and the German soldier, armed with a rifle, ran toward him, Mr. Norris said.
Mr. Norris already had his rifle aimed. He shot the man dead.
He saw another soldier looking out a second-story window. Mr. Norris fired a rifle grenade through the window and heard it explode.
"I don't know what happened up there," Mr. Norris said. "He didn't come back and look out the window no more."
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